


Research and Development

by elven_prophecy



Category: Predator (Yautja) & Related Fandoms, The Predator (2018)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Character(s), Alien Culture, Aliens, Bad Blood, Blood and Gore, DNA Splicing, Death, F/M, Feeding, Insanity, Interspecies, Prisoners, Prompt Fill, Shapeshifting, Transforming, Yautja, Yautja - freeform, camouflage, predator - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:07:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24934246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elven_prophecy/pseuds/elven_prophecy
Summary: Prompt:when the ultimate predator comes to earth to hunt down the Fugitive predator he ends up crossing paths with a female that appears human but isn't. Instead of hunting down the fugitive he finds himself attracted to the female and makes it his sole mission to find out more about her and to make her his mateIf you have an idea for a story but don't want to write it yourself, submit your commissionhere
Relationships: Ultimate Predator/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 43
Kudos: 34
Collections: Yautja Prime Prompt Meme





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [Yautja_Prompts](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Yautja_Prompts) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> when the ultimate predator comes to earth to hunt down the Fugitive predator he ends up crossing paths with a female that appears human but isn't. Instead of hunting down the fugitive he finds himself attracted to the female and makes it his sole mission to find out more about her and to make her his mate
> 
> If you have an idea for a story but don't want to write it yourself, submit your commission [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Yautja_Prompts/signups/new)

###  1

It was humiliating for one of her great species to be trapped in a large, glass jar, that she somehow could not escape. In the universe, her kind was greatly feared and avoided at all costs if they were seen. How she had come to be in this laboratory was still such a surprise to her. The irony of it was unbelievable, the others would laugh at her for eternity. They probably already did. There were others like her…? Right? She wasn't alone.

_ Escape _ .

She had come on the blue planet, riding a meteorite, her favourite mode of travel. The rock had disintegrated in the healthy atmosphere surrounding this enormous planet. The cold, depths of space, the heat of the flames, the pressure… all of it had done  _ nothing _ to harm her. She was impervious to most elements. Ageless and timeless. 

Except this blasted glass. She would never forget this glass. She hated glass. 

It was embarrassing that a glass jar held her so securely. There was a heavy pressure holding the top of the container, preventing her from pressing herself through the threading of the lid. There was no solid mass to her, everything about her was amorphous. She could shrink herself to the size of a coin, or enlarge herself to the size of a whale. She could take any form, any shape so long as she had touched it before. Her skin absorbed DNA, learning the form of anything she touched. Except that infernal glass refused to shatter each time she tried. Everything had a weakness, and she would find out what her prison’s was eventually.

_ Escape _ .

She was a Doppelganger, a term these humans had used for her that she had rather liked. She would mention it to the others when she escaped for they had no name. Or had she forgotten their name? Did they have a name? Didn't everything have a name? A species that lived on all planets throughout the universe. They were native to all. Some cultures saw them as angels or demons, others as parasites, and some others as boons. 

She would ride another meteorite out of here the moment she could. She hated this planet now. She would never ever come back to this sector of space. Escape was paramount. She would figure something out once she was free. She would get to space again, it was not impossible.

_ Escape _ !

There was an attempt at inflating herself to break the glass but for some reason that didn't work. She slimed around the perimeter of the glass feeling her way around. There had to be a way to escape this. Something she had missed…

Hunger and sheer boredom made her miserable. They did not let her out often. It bothered her that they did not stimulate her more. They had tried to inject her with stuff, she hadn't let them, morphing and flashing dangerously with colours and attacking. They tried to cut her, she hadn't let them do that either, moving her body in ways that always avoided the knife.

They had blasted her with radiation. They had touched her with extreme cold and heat through the glass. Removed the air and covered her in water. They had tried hard to kill her and every attempt had failed. She hadn't eaten in decades. Now that she thought about it, she remembered how hungry she truly was. Despicable humans...

_ Escape _ .

Her body stretched itself in the jar. She needed to escape. She had thought of nothing but escape in so long she had forgotten what else there was to think about. She was probably half insane. Which would explain the yautja she was seeing… wait.

She stopped completely and froze. She could see through the glass, through another window, something happening. A yautja. There was no mistaking it. That was really a yautja! Another elusive, ancient race that was just as mysterious as hers was. These humans knew too much. How had they known about the yautjas? And how had they known about  _ her _ ? 

_ Escape _ .

Her amorphous body jiggled in the jar. Something was happening! The yautja was fighting, blood exploded everywhere. A body was tossed in her general direction. Weapons were fired. The window cracked and shattered. She bounced excitedly in the jar.

She spread herself as wide as she could in the glass, trying to get the yautja's attention. She could escape if he freed her! She wasn't hallucinating, was she?

A body was thrown in her direction, she vibrated with nervous energy. It would break her jar! She flattened in the glass as the corpse fell short, not even coming close. Her skin bubbled in frustration. This was  _ real _

_ She had to escape! _

Shots were fired again and her small jar was not missed this time. The glass dropped from around her while she squealed with delight. 

FREEDOM. She wobbled with uncontrollable joy. She could taste it despite not having taste buds. 

There was no hesitation on her part. She immediately flattened against the table she was on, and took its form, texture and colour. She slithered away, hidden by her camouflage, changing texture to her skin and colour as she moved off the surface and onto the floor. She could clearly hear the yautja roaring and followed after it.

The yautja would lead her to the exit the fastest. They were notoriously hard to contain, though granted, not as hard as she was. They would never find her now, not if she could help it. 

She just had to make it outside. It was slow going and her skin shivered to touch the human corpses strewn all over. She was both hungry for nourishment and hungry for knowledge. She restrained herself and followed after the yautja.

There would be plenty of time to feed once she was free.

_ She had escaped.  _

_ Finally _ .


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!
> 
> Comments are love!
> 
> Comments are life!
> 
> A big thank you to Tiger_Lilly13 for letting me use her Fugitive Yautja, Ni'Kotam :)

###  2

The voices were screaming in his head, non-stop clicks and hisses and words he barely understood. Gibberish mostly, but everything was pitched and shrieking. Headaches of the likes that have probably never been witnessed by anyone tortured him. Pain in his limbs made it difficult to move around properly, his feet hurt all the time, thankfully his threshold for pain was incredibly high.  _ They _ had made sure of it.

He was a reject. He knew this with certainty. They had told him he was, they talked like he could not understand them, but he  _ could _ . Called him names that he hadn't understood fully.

They had called him an ic'jit… a Bad Blood. His crime, not being born, but made. He was considered an atrocity, a travesty. A creature of nightmare made of flesh. The elders of his clan had not realized, in their experiments, that he would become what he is. They had done this to him, turned him into this sickening mockery of a yautja. He had been grown in a tube, and then a water tank had finished the job. He'd spent the majority of his life submerged under water while they spliced his life away.

Two elite yautjas females had been selected to give parts of their wombs. His bearer and another, to form another reject like him. Ni’Kotam, he had been made like him. He had been named that one, as the more viable of the two they had said, he was still mostly yautja. His DNA had only been spliced with one other species, hairless monkeys from another planet. He, on the other hand, had been spliced with everything else. To increase everything at once. Too many species, so much alien deformities, in his system but he knew they all made him into a monstrosity. 

He was a monster. His legs hurt so much from being malformed. He did not have paws like other yautjas, he walked on his tiptoes, much like prey species. He was well over eleven feet tall, dark grey scales with red lines across his chest, his weight an astounding ton, double the weight of healthy yautjas. Muscles bulged and were denser than even normal yautjas, with eyesight enhanced. He was able to see miles in the distance, he could even zoom in and switch visions without the need for a biomask. His hearing was so sensitive he could hear the buzzing of insect wings from inside the lab. 

The sounds are what drove him insane. There was never silence to be had, never peace.  _ Never _ . His blood burned with frustration, his head pounded. The voices  _ never _ ceased. His scales were half as sensitive as those of a normal yautja. He had a natural resilience to everything. His bones were denser, thicker. His nerves and reactions faster. His scales could withstand a plasma blast.

Voices whispered constantly. Screams that were not his would echoe in his head. He could not differentiate reality from his mind. He had endured so many tests from his creators, and he had done so in silence. Letting them do as they will. Hoping they would give him a reprieve from the horrors of his mind.

And then he had heard them say, from two rooms over, that he was no longer viable. His modifications were too extreme, there was no reverting him, they could not save him and remove the junk they had filled him with. They were going to keep Ni’Kotam and destroy him. He had flown into an uncontrollable rage then, fight or flight instincts kicking into high gear. The other experiment must have known what was about to happen for he broke free before he had and escaped, stealing a ship. This enraged him further.   


His strength, which had never been gauged, had become his greatest ally. He'd destroyed his prison with almost no effort, killed all the yautja scientists that had tried to stop him. His bones and scales were so strong that a slash from some dah'kte had not amputated his arm when he had raised it to defend from a blow, instead he had broken the blades. His healing was so advanced, modified to the extreme, that he had bled but a little before the wound had closed. 

He had destroyed the lab. Killed over a dozen yautjas bare pawed. His feet pained him, but the voices were finally silenced after he cleared the ship of all life. He looted what he could for arms, his incredible height a disadvantage. He would need to change armour often, enhance some to fit his bulk. He did not know how strong his hide was, not fully anyways. He would do more experiments on his own to test his capabilities.

There were a half a dozen war dogs in the cargo hold of the ship. He could understand their yips and growls. They were all confused, they could smell the thwei  of their masters. He roared at them, establishing his dominance over the pack. He was now their alpha, their master, the others matter for naught, and he would stand for no challenge. He loaded them up into another vessel, took all the armour he could find from the corpses strewn everywhere, took all the weapons. He stripped the main vessel of everything useful before he activated the self destruct mechanism. He knew how to do this without having been shown.  _ They _ had underestimated him. 

He did not look back to see the yautja ship destroyed. Instead he focused on tracking the other reject. He would terminate him as well, and then he would destroy himself. He was yautja enough to know that both he and Ni’Kotam did not deserve to live. He would do his race a favour, he would hunt him, and kill him. 

If he was labelled a Bad Blood, then in his mind, so was the other experiment. It was his duty to destroy it. He pushed buttons on the control panel, knowing without having been taught what he needed to do to get the ship to follow after the other modified yautja. Others would come for him, the voices whispered, he would never rest.  _ Enforcers _ .

They wouldn't, he argued. He had erased all the work that had been done on him and Ni’Kotam when he destroyed the mother ship. They would not follow. Now he just needed to erase Ni’Kotam. He understood simply by looking at the dash panel that the other had fled to a desolate blue planet halfway across the galaxy. Where the monkeys with which he had been engineered were natives. 

Returning to hide with his race, he figured. It did not matter to him, he would hunt him to the ends of the universe. Only then the voices would be silent. Yes… silent. 

He would kill Ni’Kotam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:  
> ic'jit - Bad blood  
> dah'kte - wristblades  
> Thwei - blood


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy! Mental talk is Bolded.
> 
> Comments are love!
> 
> Comments are life!

### 3

She had escaped. 

_Escape_. It was a glorious word. Truly.

There was just one problem. She was not very fast. 

She had lost the yautja outside, she'd forgotten how fast they were. She had tried to transform once outside, pulling from her memory bank, but that had failed. Confusion had wracked her form as to why that had failed. _Why_?!

This was her specialty! She tried again, selecting the dna from the quickest beast she had ever encountered. It was a fast moving quadruped from a purple planet, the name of it escaped her. Her gelatinous form wobbled and she forced herself so hard she formed bubbles.

She jiggled angrily. Why was she not _transforming_ ?! She was losing the yautja! Speed was needed. _Quadruped_ . They had a spaceship! Space! _Space_ ! _Quadruped._

Nothing happened. She remained in her amorphous form, barely wobbling. She squeaked suddenly at the realization she could not shapeshift. She had… _forgotten_ … she flattened into the puddle she had waddled into. A deep depression clouding her mind. How was she going to catch the yautja without speed? What could she touch…?

Vibrations on the pavement alerted her. Something was running on this granite looking road. She wobbled excitedly. Something running, was _something_ she could touch! _She could feed!_ _Speed!_

Her body pulsated as she forced hundreds of small tentacles from her form. Each tentacle was equipped with a small suction cup that would attach to anything and pull her along. She would then feed and absorb the DNA needed to transform. 

She froze completely as she picked up the mental vibes of her kind close by. Her tentacles withdrew and she blended back in with the puddle. Without realizing she knew how to do this, she sent a wave of mental energy, signalling her position. She had instinctively known how to do so.

A warbled roar of some kind echoed, before a giant invisible creature appeared and stepped dead in the center of her. 

Time ceased. And they moved in slow motion. _This_. This was her kin… 

Her body vibrated against the scales of the toe pads. The contact was brief, less than a second, but it was enough to link. She cooed happily and wobbled after her sister. She had hoped she would have shared the DNA from the big creature she was mimicking.

" **Why do you leave me**?" she shouted after her kin, sending the mental blast.

A shriek-like roar exploded in the distance. A wave of distress came through before she cooed soothingly.

" **What is wrong**?" she raised herself from the puddle and rolled after her sister. Something was wrong. She was not answering, and what was the screeching? Was something dying? 

" **Come back**!" she buzzed, trying to sway her sister to return to her. 

A shrill, high pitched noise made her vibrate uncomfortably before it was suddenly cut off and silence echoed. 

_Silence_. 

It was a despised word. Why hadn't her sister responded? They could have _merged_! She wobbled anxiously. She had wanted to merge… she was so hungry… they could have shared her supply. She needed company… she had been alone for so long… merging would have been so wonderful right now...

She rolled a few more feet before vibrations along the pavement signalled another _thing_ approaching. Already her feelers extended and she flattened herself, taking the colour of the road, camouflaging herself.

Something white appeared right beside her. Her tentacles reached out and touched fabric. Her suction cups attached to the shoe, and she landed on the side. She could feel a pulse beneath the leather. This was armour. She buzzed with delight, she could get through armour. 

It was a slow process and the constant jarring of the shoe hitting the road kept trying to displace her. A tentacle slithered up the side of the leather. _Skin was just there_. She stretched and wrapped a slimy arm around the ankle.

A hissed gasp, the running stopped as the jogger halted and attempted to wipe her away. Another tentacle latched on the hand, another pained squeak came from the human. It was followed by a panic shriek as she pulled her palm away, but the gooey slime followed. She stretched, not releasing the hand or the foot.

She moved higher up the leg, digesting as she went, covering every inch of skin she could. The human fell to the side, screaming loudly now. She wasted no time stretching herself out and covering the mammal. She immediately camouflaged herself, turning invisible and turning the colour of her surroundings. 

There was an attempt at flattening herself that failed miserably. The human was not fully digested and the shape was very apparent. She struggled to free herself, stretching her out, clawing from the inside, but it was short-lived. She muttered to herself and concentrated on absorbing the biped. Her memories flooded her as the brain was consumed, as did her feelings, her thoughts. Everything that was necessary for her to take her form.

Her name was Anna Maria Lopez, twenty seven year old accountant, born and raised in New York. Married once, divorced, no children. A black and white cat named Felix. Dating a married man named Mario… expectations of becoming the next Mrs. Mario… 

She vibrated with excitement and attempted to transform into the jogger. She manipulated the body so that it was in the center of her new body. It would keep shrinking as she continued to feed on it. There wouldn't be a need to hide then.

It took a few moments to keep the humanoid shape. It had been so long since she had transformed, the features drooped. She muttered to herself and raised new, solid hands to her face, pushing up on the saggy skin. Her vision skewed as one eye almost rolled out of her head. This was not working… _Curses_!

She dropped the shape and returned to her amorphous form. Practice. That’s all she needed… practice. She knew how to do this. A second attempt was made to transform. This time she used as much of her mental power as she could to hold herself together. 

The skin wobbled briefly as she stretched, naked arms to the sky. That the body was nude mattered for little, she would be able to run after the yautja now. She took a step forward and collapsed in on herself, falling into a gelatinous heap on the ground, losing her new shape completely. 

She warbled angrily. She could not hold the form… she had _forgotten_ how! She sagged into the ground, flattening herself out as much as she could, changing her colour to match her surroundings as she continued to digest her meal. She would have to wait until she was done eating to try again… 

A sad mental whine vibrated her body. She was trapped… space…

Would the yautja leave without her…? Another depressed wave was emitted from her before something touched her thoughts briefly.

" **I will not leave you behind**."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!
> 
> Comments are love!
> 
> Comments are life!

###  4

Something drove him this way. A great urge that he could not control. He attributed it to his enhanced hunting instincts at first. Ni’Kotam was near.  _ Had _ to be… this was why he was running in this direction.

Then the voices were silenced. A loud,  _ single _ voice dominated. " **Why do you leave me** ?"

A  _ coherent _ sentence. He did not remember ever  _ hearing _ a question directed at him before and panicked. Confused and scared for the first time in his life… was he losing it already? He growled angrily to himself, the pitch higher than usual.

And then, like it had never been, his debilitation was gone. Replaced with a calming sensation that eclipsed  _ everything _ .

This stopped him dead in his tracks.  _ What was going on _ ? He raised a paw to his crest, two veins throbbed. He rubbed at them, the pass of his fingers trying to ease his apprehension. His nerves were on fire.

" **What is wrong** ?" 

He raised his head and roared a challenge.  _ What was talking to him _ ? Something that had not been there previously was silencing all the voices. Was soothing him… 

"Where are you?" he spoke in his language out loud, his tusks clicked and he narrowed his eyes as he peered all around, his vision adjusting as he did so. 

" **Come back** !" Something touched his thoughts and he felt a great  _ pull, _ he didn't know how else to describe this feeling, the  _ need _ to turn around and retrace his steps. 

He resisted the urge. This time, there was a sharper, harder  _ tug.  _ His head shook, sending dreads slapping against his shoulders. He raised both paws to his cranium and shrieked. Confusion and distrust, clouded his perception before he dropped to his knees and smashed his th'syra off the ground twice  _ hard _ .

Stars exploded across his vision before he lost consciousness for a few moments. This was the only way he had found that silenced the voices. 

Everything was quiet. A cricket chirped in the grass, nearby. He purred heavily, his chest rumbling. Silence was underrated. 

His eyes opened and he rolled to his feet laboriously, pain shooting up the pads of his feet. He was about to take off running, his quarry was not far… a sudden feeling of anxiousness came over him and froze him in his tracks. His tusks clicked and he glanced about just moving his eyes.

The vision installed in his head switched automatically. In the distance, back the way he had come, there was  _ something _ . He tilted his head, his entire body still. He could see a heat signature that was…  _ shrinking… _ ? He watched a few seconds to confirm.

_ It was!  _

Something was  _ feeding _ . He zoomed in to try and see what was happening without having to go back. A ooman… he could see the general shape… the heat from the earth monkey was being transferred to something else.

He squeaked, a high-pitched noise of surprise as whatever surrounded the human overtook the heat signature and stretched up, taking the shape of the ape. He tilted his head to the other side as his yautja curiosity drew him back. His foot moved of its own volition and took a step in the direction of the ooman.

Another squeak came from him followed by rapid clicking. The creature had dropped to the ground like a controlled pool of gel. He took another step, pain shooting up his leg like lightning. A deep sadness dropped onto him like a dead weight. But it was not his sadness… this felt…  _ different _ . He got a brief mental image of the darkness of space, and a longing so sharp it left him breathless.

A voice, the same from before, whispered pathetically in his ear. Words he understood. Desertion, abandonment.  _ Yautja _ . 

This creature, he stared at the gelatinous, heated blob, was not from this planet. He watched from a distance as it tried to disappear, and maybe it had for everything else, but not to him. The heat it was stealing from the deceased revealed it as clear as could be.

A black wave of depression, the likes of which he had never felt before, enveloped him. Something inside him reacted and before he could stop himself, he sent a mental word of comfort.

" **I will not leave you behind** ."

He took another step, his tread heavy. He kept his gaze on the other alien as it made another attempt to stand up and stretch itself into the ooman form. The shape was female, he could tell, and she moved awkwardly dropping a couple inches in height as she took steps. He approached slowly and was not expecting her to take off into a fast sprint in his direction. 

His cloak fell over him before she saw him and he tilted his head as a strange shape ran past him. It was unclothed, and definitely did not look like an earth monkey. The arms were long, unnaturally so, rubbery and raised over the head, waving behind the shape. The legs did not look strong enough to carry any weight and he saw the skin wobble awkwardly. The face was not ooman looking at all, the features drooping, so much so that the eyes were at the same level as the nose, there were jowls along her jaw. The hair was the only thing that looked  _ right _ .

A warbled noise came from the creature as she collapsed in on herself, the flesh folding and the shape vanishing in a gelatinous mess. It was closer to him and he could see what it truly was. He  _ knew _ this species. 

That was a Far'ka-leth, a demon to most species across the universe, and a nuisance to the yautja.

The species was considered not huntable. They were ageless and shapeless, said to come from one massive being that was floating in deep space. They had impressive powers, the ability to absorb any and all information by devouring the brain, telepathic. The Far'ka-leth fed on anything with DNA, and could shapeshift into anything they had already consumed once before.

" **Wait for me** !" He saw the shape vibrate, the gel shaking all across the surface. " **Please** !"

He remained motionless and watched as another attempt was made by the blob to reform itself. It was a better representation this time, the skin not loose. She stretched the arms up, spreading the fingers. The face remained intact, eyes, nose and mouth in the right place. The epidermis was firm and was not sagging or drooping. 

She took off running, he followed after her silently, keeping his treads light. He did not want to announce his presence to the creature. He could feel her presence in his mind, keeping his thoughts quiet. 

" **Sister** !" She mentally screamed, her head looking all around as she continued to run at full speed. The Far'ka-leth was more solid this time, she kept her shape as she bolted naked through the empty street. 

He was impressed at how quickly she was adapting to her surroundings. He could no longer see her heat signature, and she kept the form. There was no limit to her energy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation:  
> th'syra - skull  
> Ooman - human


End file.
